


true love is closer than you think

by junyeonbug



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And More Angst, Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Self-Harm, and yuta is too noisy, ends off with a fluffy note dont worry, my soul is too dark, ty is just a poor lil kid, yuta is like the most oblivious ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9518696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junyeonbug/pseuds/junyeonbug
Summary: Yuta is just like anyone else. He wants to find his soulmate, be friends with them and probably fall in love. When his soulmate starts messing things up, he's about to lose hope, but Taeyong fixes everything up for him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i kind of came up with this idea on the spot...idk HAHAH it was fun to write tho i put some of my own personal struggles in both yuta and ty so it was kinda easier to write than other oneshots :)

The concept of soulmates isn't difficult to understand.

Well, at least to children who are introduced to it when they are probably nine or ten, when they find strange scribblings or bruises on their arms which sure wasn't caused by them. It's simple. When a form of ink stains your arm, it appears on your soulmate's. Same goes with cuts and bruises.

Yuta didn't expect to be introduced to it when he was five.

Of course, the poor boy didn't understand a word of it back then. He was just quietly watching Frozen on the television when he shifted his gaze from the tv to his left arm, only to see a rainbow spectrum of colours painted on it.

He screamed like the tv suddenly caught fire and his parents came running to him, eyes as wide as saucers and questioning lil Yuta what had happened.

Not saying a word, the boy just pointed to his left arm, eyes filling up with tears. "I... didn't do this... but suddenly appear... not me, mom, dad, it appear like magic..."

Yuta's parents shared knowing smirks and his mom spoke up first, "come on Yuta, let's get this cleaned off and we'll explain it to you."

That was all the tiny and unused brain of Nakamoto Yuta could take in at that point of time. The rest were a blur of new and complicated words that he didn't bother to, or rather couldn't, remember.

Yuta went to sleep that night with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. But he didn't bring it up anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, he had completely forgotten about the incident until ten years later, when Yuta was walking to school like any other ordinary morning.

Wanting to check the time so that he could confirm he wasn't going to be late, he lifted up his left arm where his watch was wrapped around his wrist. Just as he was about to put his arm down and continue walking, he saw random black splotches of ink peeking out from the long sleeve of his uniform. Curiosity taking over him, he rolled up his sleeve.

You could say in that moment Nakamoto Yuta got the biggest shock of his entire lifetime.

Staring at his wrist that was tattooed with numerous characters that weren't even in his language, Yuta couldn't help but allow his jaw to drop to the ground. And the writings were continuing. From his wrist, down to his forearm, down to the crook of his elbow... Just when Yuta thought it was over, he flipped his arm over to see that the writings were continuing there.

For a solid ten minutes, Yuta stood there staring at his very own left arm like he had never seen it before, wondering what the hell was going on and why this invisible person was writing strange Chinese? characters on his arm. He took note of the handwriting, how each stroke was written fast, yet precise and neat, and how they made up to form one character. Yuta hated to admit it, but whoever's handwriting that was, it sure was pretty.

Yuta looked up from his arm and started to run to school so that he could show his best friend Sana what an invisible man was writing on his arm. Even while he was running, the writing continued and Yuta was amazed at how steady the man's handwriting could be even when he was flying down the streets to the neighbourhood school.

"SANA!" The Japanese boy yelled the moment he stepped into the classroom. The girls snickered at how terrible he looked, his hair all over the place from the speed he was running, and one with one sleeve of the school uniform up and the other down.

"What? What happened?" The called girl rose from her seat and Yuta immediately ran to her, showing her his left arm that had more ink than skin.

"There's this invisible man that's writing stuff on my arm! What he's writing I have no idea, but his handwriting is sure pretty! And his handwriting stayed stable even though I was running, isn't that amazing?" Yuta panted, still breathless from running such a long distance.

Sana stared at him in disbelief before bursting into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Yuta frowned, his arm retreating, "you don't believe that an invisible man is writing on my arm?" His face expressed genuine hurt and Sana had to stop laughing if not Yuta would start crying.

"No, it's not that," she smiled, taking his arm, "an invisible man is not writing these. It's someone real."

"Someone real?! Then how come I can't see them?" Yuta's eyes widened in shock, "am I the only one who can't see them? Can you see them?"

Sana giggled again, shaking her head as she rolled up Yuta's left sleeve and inspected the characters, "these are a bunch of biology terms. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid... you get the idea."

"Wait this is in Korean?? I thought they were in Chinese!" Yuta exclaimed and Sana wanted to slap the boy in front of him because how. could someone. be so stupid.

"Urgh I give up on you, Yuta," Sana turned around and faced the front of the classroom.

"Noo! Tell me, who's writing these? And why biology terms? And why in Korean? And why am I so confused when you seem to know everything?" Yuta whined as he poked Sana's shoulder from behind.

The Japanese girl rolled her eyes and faced her best friend again, "God Yuta, you talk too much," she cleared her throat and slowly explained, "the person who's writing these words, is your soulmate."

"SOULMATE??!" Yuta hollered, gaining everybody's attention before apologising, "I thought those only existed in fanfictions!"

Sana fought the urge to roll her eyes again. "No, Yuta, soulmates are actually real," she told him and Yuta just gasped really loudly and covered his mouth.

"So... I have a soulmate? Who wrote these? In Korean? My soulmate's Korean? How am I gonna meet them? Wait, this is so cool, you mean I can actually see whatever they write on their arm?" Yuta rambled and Sana smiled at how cute his best friend was.

"Yeah, whatever your soulmate writes on their arm appears on your arm too. Including cuts and bruises. If they get it, you get it too," Sana stated calmly as she watched Yuta's jaw drop lower and lower.

"That. Is. So. Cool," Yuta's eyes sparkled as he said that, "no wonder I found cuts on my arm last night! I thought it was just me being careless, but it was my soulmate? And I can talk to them? By writing on my arm? And they'll see it too? And reply?"

Sana nodded to all of his questions, just as the teacher came in and lessons started.

Yuta couldn't keep still in his seat, staring at his arm every five seconds, which got him kicked out of the classroom. That didn't stop him from paying more attention to the foreign words than the actual class itself.

When the class ended and Yuta dragged his feet back to his seat after a good scolding from the teacher, Sana asked him again, "any changes?"

Yuta rolled his sleeve up and looked at the familiar sight of squiggly characters, shaking his head.

"Wait," Sana grabbed his wrist before Yuta could roll up his sleeve again, "the back of your arm. Look at this."

Furrowing his eyebrows, he flipped his arm over and, just like magic, the Korean words faded and eventually disappeared. Yuta looked back at the front of his arm and saw the words there had disappeared as well.

"What... is happening... Sana... why is it disappearing..." Yuta held his arm far away from him and squeezed his eyes shut, like it was going to explode any second soon.

Sana let out a breathy laugh before taking Yuta's arm and placing it back beside his waist, "it's not going to explode. Don't worry, it's just your soulmate washing off what they wrote. Their biology test must have ended. It's harmless, Yuta, don't look so scared."

Sighing in relief, Yuta opened his eyes and grabbed a marker out of his pencil case. "Should i talk to them now?"

Sana nodded excitedly as Yuta uncapped the marker and scribbed several letters on his left wrist.

**_konnichiwa_ **

They didn't need to wait long before more letters, or rather symbols, appeared below Yuta's message.

_**???!!?!!!** _

Chuckling, Yuta wrote below the question and exclamation marks.

_**watashiwa Yuta desu** _

This time, Yuta's soulmate replied in actual words, but unfamiliar ones. Luckily Sana was beside Yuta if not he'd be completely clueless.

_**일본?** _

"He asked if you're Japanese," Sana translated quickly and Yuta's grin grew even wider.

_**hai. dare desuka?** _

They waited a little longer this time before the Korean words replied again, Yuta taking note of how pretty the handwriting was, stroke by stroke filled with beauty.

_**난 태용이야** _

Sana grinned. "Your soulmate's name is Taeyong."

 

 

 

 

 

Taeyong shoved his earbuds deeper in his ears, turned up the volume, and put his hands over them in order to block out the shouting that was happening outside his room.

Nothing was working.

The arguing between his parents had been going on for a few hours now, and if anything, it was growing wilder. Taeyong could hear stuff being thrown about and broken. He certainly did not want to know what were those stuff, but he still had to find out the next morning when he emerged from his hiding hole to go to school.

This was a regular occurance- normally they would start fighting over the smallest of things and it would end with either one of them storming out of the house and not returning until the next morning. Taeyong would usually not care, trying to block them out by blasting music in his ears that was so loud he's sure he's partially deaf by now.

Today was one of those days, but the poor boy had an important biology test the next day and had trouble cramming an entire textbook worth of infomation into his head. The racket outside wasn't helping.

Taeyong desperately wanted to get out of his room, yell at them to stop hating each other, stop making so much noise so that he could study for his test.

But he knew the consequences. So Taeyong stayed silent.

As the moon raised higher in the sky, so did the volume of Taeyong's parents' shouting. He prayed that one of them would give up and get out of the house so that at least he would have a few miserable minutes left before he had to get to bed. Or that his neighbour would call the cops and report them for creating disturbance, but his neighbours were currently out of the house, judging by the darkness that Taeyong could see out of his window.

A loud thump resounded against his bedroom door, followed by the sound of glass shattering. He hoped his parents had not escalated into throwing their plates and bowls at each other.

The shattering of the glass bowl seemed to break something in him. A tear slipped out of Taeyong's eye as he questioned himself the same questions everyday: why do his parents hate each other? Will they eventually divorce one day and leave himself with only one parent? What made them marry and have him in the first place when they were going to be like this? Why couldn't he have a normal and loving family like all his friends?

The last thought never failed to make Taeyong into a sobbing mess. He hated how he saw his classmates with their parents, joking around with them and looking as comfortable as ever, whereas when Taeyong was with his parents he remained as quiet as a mouse and flinched whenever one of them talked. He longed for a sibling- someone that he could share his pain with and understand him better than Jaehyun did. Sure, Jaehyun was the best friend that Taeyong could ask for, always healing his mental wounds and making Taeyong feel much better, but something was missing. Taeyong didn't know what.

Calming down from his fit of sobs, he eyed the penknife in his penholder warily before holding it in his right hand. He'd always thought of self-harming but never actually did it. Taeyong would change that today.

Pushing the blade out of its case, he pressed it against the skin of his left arm and dragged it an inch. Yelping in pain, he shot up from his chair and clutched his arm, the penknife clattering to the floor. He was weak, he thought, he couldn't even handle a blade gliding across his arm without gasping in pain.

Washing the cut until no blood came out anymore, he abandoned his studying in favour for his bed, crying himself to sleep with his parents' shouting as the background noise.

 

 

 

 

 

The word 'Taeyong' drifted around in Yuta's head for a very, very long while.

"Taeyong? Why does that sound like a boy's name? My soulmate is a boy?" Yuta had questioned Sana on the day they had found out Yuta's soulmate's name.

"Maybe your soulmate is a boy. I don't know, but does it make any difference if they're a boy or a girl? They're all the same anyway," Sana shrugged before walking away.

Sana was right. Yuta didn't care if they were a boy or a girl, but he did care that his soulmate wasn't living in the same country, nor speaking the same language as him.

But he wanted to talk to Taeyong, even if the other didn't want to talk to him. So Yuta did what he could: take up Korean lessons, in hopes of flying to Korea one day to meet his soulmate.

He couldn't believe he was learning an entirely new language just for his soulmate, because in a blink of an eye four years had passed, Yuta mastered the language and does Taeyong still even remember him?

Yuta went to bed everyday with that question in mind. He could've always simply just grabbed a marker and written on his arm _'hi do you remember me'_ , but something was stopping him. Maybe it was the fact that Taeyong hadn't written any form of message to Yuta in the past four years. Maybe it was the fact that Taeyong didn't want to talk to Yuta. Maybe it was the fact that Taeyong had completely forgotten Yuta's existence.

When Yuta had graduated junior college and entered a university, Sana decided to move to another part of Japan to further her studies, leaving Yuta alone in Osaka. It was now safe to assume that Yuta had no friends anymore.

One night, when he had climbed into bed and asked himself yet again whether Taeyong remembered him, a sharp pain in his left arm made Yuta spring out of bed and shout. Rushing to the toilet, he rolled up his sleeve a sea of red greeted him.

Cuts were scattered all over his arm, and more were in the process of being made. With each new cut that began, Yuta had to bite his bottom lip to prevent him from screaming cold murder because, damn, it really hurt.

And the cuts didn't look so accidental either. They were all over the place, all in straight lines oozing out different amounts of blood, some vertical, horizontal, diagonal, in no particular order. Yuta didn't think an accident would have caused his arm to be in the state it was now.

Then it hit him. _Taeyong._ Taeyong was cutting himself. All the pain draining from him, he bolted back to his room and grabbed a marker off his desk, before hastily scribbling a few Korean characters on one of the few patches of uncut skin.

**_TAEYONG STOP_ **

The cutting seemed to stop, and Yuta sighed in relief. But a minute later, fresh black ink appeared on his arm, diagonally below Yuta's message.

**_who are you?_ **

Yuta's heart dropped.

_**Yuta. You don't remember?** _

A pause.

_**oh Yuta. I didn't know you knew Korean** _

Yuta let out a brearh he did know he was holding. So Taeyong never did forget him in the first place.

**_let's save that for another time. Why are you doing this?_ **

Yuta waited. One, two, three minutes, the blood on his arm had started to dry up, and the only reply he got was the short conversation that he had with Taeyong vanishing into thin air.

He washed off the dried blood and winced at the ugly cuts on his arm, and waited somemore. Once Yuta couldn't take it any longer, he uncapped his marker again.

**_Taeyong? You haven't replied me_ **

Yuta held his breath when he saw the beautiful handwriting appear on his arm again, but his heart sunk at the reply.

**_goodnight, Yuta_ **

 

 

 

 

 

"Jaehyun?"

The younger boy stopped chewing on his sandwich to look at his best friend who had barely whispered his name. "Hmm?"

"Can you understand Japanese?" Taeyong inched closer to Jaehyun, looking for comfort.

"What's wrong?" Jaehyun abandoned his food and paid his full attention to Taeyong, who had his sweater sleeve pulled up and blinking at the unfamiliar language.

"Japanese suddenly appeared on my arm, I don't know what's happening, I don't know what this person is talking about... Jaehyun..." Taeyong frowned and Jaehyun just laughed.

"He said yes to your question. And asked who you are," Jaehyun replied and Taeyong promptly replied by writing _'I'm Taeyong'_ below the question.

After Jaehyun had explained the entire soulmate concept to Taeyong, the latter was equally as amazed as Yuta was. Waiting for a reply to his introduction, he kept his pen uncapped, expecting Yuta to say something more about himself and keep the conversation going.

Taeyong was patient. One minute passed, no reply. One hour passed, no reply. One day passed, no reply. One week passed, no reply. Eventually when a year passed and Taeyong had not been replied, he gave up waiting and concluded that Yuta had absolutely no interest in him.

When he turned 19 and Jaehyun left his side to go to a seperate university, Taeyong's living hell became even worse. Now with no friends to turn to when he was upset, Taeyong tried finding other ways to help him feel better, one of which was cutting himself.

It was another night when his parents were yelling the house down and Taeyong attacked himself with more of his destructive thoughts. Not hesistating unlike last time, Taeyong grabbed the penknife from where it had been sitting untouched on his pencil holder since four years ago. He extended the blade and just before he could push it in his skin, a name flashed through his mind.

_Yuta._

Taeyong knew fully well that Yuta would get all these cuts too if he did decide to cut himself, but what was stopping him? Yuta probably forgot his existence judging by the amount of time he was waiting for him to reply. So without thinking anymore, the sharp blade dug into his skin and Taeyong closed his eyes for awhile, feeling the stress drain out of him.

He repeated the action, drawing lines all over his arm and smiling wearily at the blood dripping out of each of them. As he was filling up the empty spaces with more cuts, a very familiar black ink in very familiar handwriting appeared on his wrist.

**_TAEYONG STOP_ **

That wasn't Yuta, Taeyong thought. The Yuta he knew spoke Japanese and was in Japan. Frowning at being interrupted, Taeyong put down the blood-lined penknife and picked up a pen instead.

**_who are you?_ **

**_Yuta. You don't remember?_ **

Taeyong froze. Now he had made Yuta think that he had forgotten him. Since when did Yuta know Korean? Or... did Yuta learn Korean specially for him? He shook the thought out of his head, that was impossible. Trying to make himself sound as unaffected as possible, he thought awhile before penning down his reply.

**_oh Yuta. I didn't know you knew Korean_ **

**_let's save that for another time. Why are you doing this?_ **

Taeyong bit his lip and winced, a wave of pain suddenly washing over him. Could he trust Yuta enough to tell him the real reason why he had done this? Who was he kidding, this was only the second time he was talking to him, but then again, Yuta was his soulmate, and they were meant to be together. Contemplating for a good ten minutes, he decided the best option would be to wash it off.

**_Taeyong? You haven't replied me_ **

If not for that bit of ink that seeped into one of his cuts, Taeyong would never have known Yuta was waiting for his reply. He stared at the message, tears unknowingly started clouding in his eyes. It was all Taeyong's fault. His selfishness had led to Yuta suffering the same cuts as him. Now Yuta was demanding the reason why he dirtied his perfectly normal left arm with something he didn't even want. And Taeyong couldn't reply him. What a perfect example of a loser.

Instead of erasing the message like he normally did, he reached over and grabbed his pen, using the moonlight to scribble two messy words.

**_goodnight, Yuta_ **

Taeyong cried himself to sleep once again, with the thought of the person whom he was meant to be with hating him forever.

 

 

 

 

 

Taeyong never once talked to Yuta again.

 _'Taeyong?'_ Silence. _'Are you okay?'_ Silence. _'Don't do anything silly like that again, okay? For your own good, Taeyong.'_ Silence.

If not for the fact that Taeyong had erased every single one of Yuta's messages about an hour after it had been written, Yuta would've thought Taeyong was dead.

On top of ignoring him, Taeyong went against Yuta's words as well. As soon as the cuts from that night healed, Yuta was awakened from his sleep to find out that fresh, new cuts had replaced them.

 _'Taeyong!'_ He tried, _'Taeyong, listen to me, stop doing this!'_

The cutting stopped for a couple seconds, but Yuta's hopes of getting Taeyong to finally talk to him went down the gutter when his message vanished and cuts took over the patch of untainted skin.

Yuta sighed and tried to ignore the blood that was dripping down his arm and on his desk. He had to do something fast, something that would stop Taeyong from doing whatever he was doing. Not because Yuta was getting the second-hand pain, but for Taeyong's sake. At the rate Taeyong was going, his next step might probably be killing himself.

If he couldn't get Taeyong to listen to him through messages, what could he do to get Taeyong to stop? He thought hard, distracting him from the continuing slashes on his arm.

A lightbulb flickered on in Yuta's head.

Since his left arm was full, Yuta wrote on his right arm with his very terrible left hand writing.

**_Taeyong, if you ever think no one's there for you, think of me. I'm always here, a grab of a marker away. Even though we can't see each other, we're always in each other's hearts, and maybe one day, fate will bring us together_ **

The cuts from that night closed up, healed, and never opened again.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the plane ticket and passport in his hand, Yuta regretted nothing.

It took him months of paperwork, but finally after half a year, he had secured himself a position in one of the universities in Seoul. Thankfully, Taeyong never cut himself anymore, but he had never talked to Yuta, and Yuta's messages all got ignored if he tried to initiate the conversation.

After awhile, Yuta gave up.

He was going to Korea in hopes of finding Taeyong and shake some sense into him after all. Not like Taeyong revealed which part of Korea he lived in, but Yuta just grabbed the opportunity and went to the first university that accepted his application. That was the main reason, the side reason being that Yuta was genuinely interested in Korea's culture. But mostly the Taeyong part.

When he landed in Korea and managed to find his way to the campus office, he was greeted by this really tall, frog-eyed blonde man.

"Are you Yuta?" Frog-eyes asked and Yuta nodded his head, "I'm Hansol, your roommate and your guardian."

"I'm 19. I don't need a guardian," Yuta huffed, "show me our room already, I'm tired."

"Fine, grouch, but don't blame me if you get lost on your first day of school tomorrow," Hansol shrugged and walked out of the office, leading the way.

Hansol was right. The campus was way bigger than Yuta's in Osaka and after his day of lessons he had trouble finding his way back to the dorms. Silently cursing under his breath, he walked and walked in whichever direction seemed sensible to him. But with every turn he made, the buildings seemed to grow more and more unfamiliar.

He ended up at the arts block, which, Yuta found out afterwards, was in the opposite direction where he was originally supposed to go. He heard instruments being played, booming ~~sYSTEM UP UP~~ music from speakers as students danced to it, and as he walked on, everything became quiet. Yuta knew he was at the end of the campus and was about to turn back when his eye caught a light shining from one of the many vocal rooms.

Normally Yuta wouldn't really have cared, but something about that room drew him to it. Maybe it was because his surroundings were so dark and quiet and that vocal room with the lights on stood out. Maybe it was because Yuta heard a voice that was beyond beautiful seeping out of the crack under the door.

Maybe it was because the most handsome being Yuta had even seen was sitting on the floor beside a red snapback, phone in hand, singing along to the music playing from it.

It was amazing Yuta found that guy handsome, because he currently had tears streaming down his cheeks and his voice cracked every few seconds. He wondered how many times more handsome he would look when he wasn't crying.

" _I saw an angel, neol cheoeum bwasseulttae, haneureseo naeryeoon cheonsa gachi binnaseo_ ," the guy sang with his eyes closed and damn, Yuta thought, his English pronunciation was also spot on. How boyfriend material.

Yuta slapped that thought out of his head. What the hell.

He leaned on the wall beside the vocal room so that he could still listen and be unnoticed. Yuta closed his eyes to indulge on the beautiful voice from an equally beautiful man-

"NAKAMOTO!"

His eyes flung open and saw Irritating Frog-Eyes at the end of the corridor, running towards him.

"God, I literally ran around the entire campus looking for you! How did your ass manage to find its way here?" Hansol reached him and rested his hands on his knees, panting, "see, I told you you'd get lost! This is what happens if you don't listen to Hansol The Great."

Yuta rolled his eyes and dragged his roommate out of the scene so that in case the hot guy comes out after hearing so much noise, they wouldn't be there. "I was going to turn back. Like, literally five seconds before you came."

Hansol scoffed, throwing his head back. "Yeah right, we all knew you were busy listening to loner guy's voice."

"Oh yeah," Yuta turned to Hansol, "who was that guy in the vocal room? What's his name?"

Hansol laughed, a forced sound that came out of his mouth. "Hah, no one knows, Yuta, no one knows who he is. We don't know his name, we don't know how he looks like... all we know is that he likes this vocal room and it's basically his. Either than that, he's just a loner with no friends. That's why we call him loner guy."

Yuta scrunched up his nose. "That's mean. No one tried to go up to him and initiate conversation?"

"Lots of people tried," Hansol shook his head, "all of them failed. Loner guy ignored all of them. I feel sorry for them."

"Loner guy, really? That's just really mean. Why doesn't he want to reveal his name? Even the teachers call him that during classes?" Yuta frowned. He couldn't apprehend the situation- he was a friendly person by nature and couldn't stand it when someone was left out.

"I don't know, maybe he's wanted by the cops or something. The teachers call him TY, but that can't possibly be his real name either," Hansol took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, "why are we talking about him anyway? It's not important. What do you feel like eating for dinner?"

But Yuta wasn't listening. He was busy thinking of how to get loner guy, or TY, to be his first friend.

 

 

 

 

 

Yuta knew exactly how when he walked into one of his classes the next day.

There he was, TY, or whatever, sitting at the back corner of the classroom, all alone. In fact, Yuta wouldn't even have recognised him if not for the red snapback he saw yesterday that was hiding all his facial features.

"Anyone sitting here?" Yuta asked and he shook his head. Smiling to himself, he dropped his books on the table and shifted his gaze fo the man beside him.

Up close, he was undeniably much more handsome. Even though anything above his nose couldn't be seen, the guy's lips and jawline were enough to drive Yuta crazy. The handsome dude pretended not to notice Yuta staring and continued his work.

"Let's introduce ourselves. You first." Yuta tried, and as expected, his words got ignored. Yuta pressed on.

"Come on, I have to know you! Since we're gonna be sitting beside each other in this class, at least I need to know your name, bro," Yuta transformed his fingers into a stick man and made it walk all over the guy's paper, trying to disrupt him from his work.

"Fine, I'll go first, since you're scared," Yuta removed his stick man, "I'm Yuta, from Osaka, Japan, and I just started school yesterday. Your turn."

The guy's pen stopped in midair and his body remained in .jpg for a minute or so.

"Uh... you ok?" Yuta waved a hand under his nose and that snapped the guy out of his trance. He scribbled something on the corner of his paper and thrust it to Yuta.

_What did you say your name was?_

Reading the handwriting stirred up a sense of familiarity in Yuta, but he ignored the feeling.

"God, are you not listening? Yuta. Y-U-T-A. From Japan, where takoyaki is the best," Yuta explained and the guy's grip around the pen tightened. Did the guy have something against Japanese people?

Taking back his paper, the guy resumed his work, but all that came out were ugly squiggles.

"Hey! You haven't told me your name yet!" Yuta whined, "tell me your name, if not I'll give you the nickname I was thinking of."

The guy continued to draw squiggles.

"I heard you singing yesterday. Your voice sounds like an angel, so I'm gonna call you angel from now on," Yuta grinned when the guy stopped squiggling, grabbed his work, and moved further away from the Japanese man.

"Don't you like it, angel?" Yuta reappeared beside the guy, smiling teasingly while trying to look under his cap. He just turned his head away, tore out a page from his notebook, wrote something, crumpled it, and threw it to Yuta.

_It's embarrassing_

"Do you not talk or something? Why do you have to reply on a piece of paper?" Yuta questioned, "you refused to tell me your name. So I have the right to name you, angel."

The guy grumbled and snatched the paper back.

_I do talk. I just don't want to. And I swear to god don't talk to me when the lesson starts. This is my favourite class_

"You know, your handwriting seems really familiar, like I've seen it somewhere before," Yuta said to himself but he noticed the guy's hands clench into fists, "but I may be mistaken, I don't know."

Like the guy wanted, Yuta didn't bother him when the class started. They stayed silent, paying attention until Yuta decided to roll up his sweater sleeves to start on his notes.

The guy's eyes widened into basketballs, which went unnoticed by Yuta due to his snapback. Growing curious, he put down his pen and reached over to poke Yuta's scarred skin.

"Hm?" Yuta looked over at the guy who had his gaze fixed on Yuta's left arm.

_How did you get these? They look terrible_

"Oh," he saw the corners of Yuta's lips curve into a smile, "I never told anyone before, not even Hansol, but since you asked, I'll tell you."

"My soulmate did this. I know it looks horrifying, but I'm not angry at him. I know he has reasons for doing this. I didn't push him to tell me why, because he probably doesn't trust me enough yet," Yuta traced the scars with his index finger, smiling. "Wanna know something? I actually came to Korea so that I could look for him, and help him get over whatever's troubling him. He seems to have stopped this awhile back already, but I don't think his mental scars are fully healed yet. To fix that, I learned Korean specially for him so that I could talk to him comfortably. Do you think he's okay, angel? Do you think I can find him?"

The guy nodded quickly, turning around to focus on his work. Once he saw Yuta not looking in his direction anymore, a droplet made a wet splotch on his jeans.

The droplet turned into a waterfall. Suddenly, the lesson didn't seem interesting anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Yuta woke up to see a small 'thank you' on his wrist. He wondered why.

 

 

 

 

 

To Yuta's pleasure, he found out he shared majority of his classes with Taeyong. Though he was still communicating with him through a crumpled page of his notebook, and he still couldn't identify him without the iconic red snapback, Yuta enjoyed Taeyong's prescence.

And if Taeyong had to be completely honest, although Yuta was constantly teasing him or making too much noise, he enjoyed Yuta's company too.

Yuta would always take him out for lunch between lessons. Taeyong really appreciated that, though he didn't say it, because he normally skipped his meals as a result of no one to eat with. That was the cause of his terribly skinny figure.

Yuta would stand up for him too, when people around them would start gossiping about Taeyong being a coward. When he saw Yuta land his fist on someone's jaw after that person called him a loser, he made it a point to stick to Yuta from that day onwards.

As a result of spending so much time with Taeyong, Yuta gained the reputation of 'loner guy's friend', which really destroyed his image. Of course Taeyong knew about it and distanced himself from Yuta when he heard the words 'loner guy's friend' along the corridors. But Yuta's arm would always find its way back to its position around Taeyong's waist, pulling him closer to him.

"Why do you even hang out with him? He doesn't talk, you don't even know how he looks like, nor his name. Hell, it's deathly amazing you even got him to reply to you and your unnecessary questions. How did you do that? And why don't you hang out with more fun people like me?" Hansol asked him one night when both of them were in their beds, trying to sleep.

"Firstly, you aren't much fun either," Yuta grunted and ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know. All I did was tell him my name and he started replying to me already. Seriously, why did you make it sound so difficult to talk to him?" he chuckled, "and secondly, angel may be more fun than you think. He takes off his snapback and talks to me when the two of us are alone. He has a nice smile and laugh. And he's cute. Though he still refuses to tell me his name though, it's weird," he sighed and looked at the ceiling.

"Angel. Of all nicknames. Makes it sound like you two are a thing," Hansol laughed.

"I don't mind. Angel is handsome, sings well, smart, basically fitting every category of my ideal type," Yuta smiled to himself.

"Don't pass your gayness to me. Goodnight bro," Hansol rolled over and Yuta's smile grew wider at his comment. If only angel and him were meant to be.

 

 

 

 

 

Yuta hovered the marker over the skin of his left arm, contemplating on what he should write.

It had been months since he'd last talked to Taeyong, and ages since Taeyong ever talked to him. After thinking about it, Yuta just settled with a short _'i miss you'_.

What he didn't expect was, number one, Taeyong replying him. And number two, Taeyong replying him literally three seconds after he wrote that. It was just two words, but at least it was better than nothing.

**_i'm fine_ **

**_thank God!! hey, wanna know something?_ **

**_what is it, Yuta_ **

Yuta's heart pounded at the way Taeyong wrote his name. Beautiful like always, but Yuta swore he had seen his name written like that before.

**_I actually arrived in Korea not too long ago! I came here to attend a university, but also to find you ;)_ **

Taeyong didn't reply for a very long time. Yuta thought he got ignored again, but the words _'that's fascinating'_ appeared below his message. Yuta paused to think what to write but Taeyong beat him. For once.

**_how's Korea? Your university?_ **

Yuta smiled. This was his chance to tell Taeyong all about angel.

**_oh it's great. my roommate Hansol might be a bitch but he's the best bro. And there's this guy I befriended. I called him angel_ **

**_angel?_ **

His grin widened. Taeyong was interested.

**_yeah, he wouldn't tell me his name so I called him angel. People think he's the introvert who hates everyone and is boring and mysterious but he's actually a huge ball of fluff. He's cute_ **

Another pause. Yuta thought Taeyong might be busy so he waited. True enough, the reply soon came.

**_you... like him?_ **

**_I think I like him, I don't know... but you're my soulmate. I'm supposed to like you_ **

This time, Yuta waited a full ten minutes. Taeyong must really be busy.

**_never mind me. I hope the two of you date_ **

The space on his left arm was running out so Yuta grabbed a cloth and erased their conversation, creating more space.

**_I hope so too. How about you? You fine these days?_ **

**_I made a new friend too. He was the one who helped me_ **

That comment made Yuta's stomach lurch. Something in him didn't like the fact that he wasn't the cause of Taeyong's happiness now.

**_really? That's awesome. How's he like? His name? How he looks?_ **

Fifteen minutes of waiting time made Yuta wonder if Taeyong was actually piecing together and drafting out the right words to describe him. Finally Taeyong replied, and damn, that's a long ass passage that took up half his arm.

**_he's like your guy. I don't know his name, but I call him Yukkuri. He face looks like it has been sculptured by the visual Gods. He's really annoying, talks too much, irritates me all day. But he's amazing. He stands up for me and makes me feel loved. He makes me feel things I never knew could be felt. I never told him all these, but I hope he knows. He's really important to me_ **

Yuta cracked a sad smile reading the passage. How he wished he could be this Yukkuri guy.

**_that's sweet. You like him?_ **

**_I... guess..._ **

Yuta's heart ached.

**_I hope the two of you date too_ **

Taeyong's pen hesitated on his wrist, the blob of ink growing and growing.

He grabbed a towel and wiped it off. Taeyong didn't reply.

 

 

 

 

 

Yuta sneezed into yet another tissue and cursed Hansol out loud. One week into school and his roommate officially made him sick. Now Hansol was completely cured and the bug jumped onto Yuta instead.

He sneezed again, so violently that he fell back onto his bed. The doctor instructed him not to lay a foot in school for the next week, effectively making him miss lessons. He had Hansol to take his notes for him, but then there was angel.

Angel. He's be alone for the next week and Yuta wasn't sure if he'd be okay. Being the idiot he was, Yuta never asked for his number and thus couldn't tell him he was sick. And also being the idiot Hansol was, he couldn't even do his roommate a simple favour by telling angel that he couldn't come to school for a week _(_ " _I don't want my reputation to be ruined, unlike someone's")_

Yuta groaned and pulled the covers over his head. He was such an idiot.

He managed to survive three days not seeing his friend, until his left arm started aching a very familiar pain.

Fearing the worst, Yuta pulled back the sleeve of his long-sleeve shirt and gasped at the sight.

Since the last time Taeyong cut himself was more than half a year ago, Yuta almost forgot the pain and the gruesome sight, but the way his arm looked like now brought a wave of memories crashing back at him.

Yuta scrambled off the bed and rummaged through his pencil case for the marker. _'Taeyong!'_

The cutting paused.

**_he's gone, Yuta_ **

**_who's gone? Your friend? Yukkuri? What happened?_ **

**_he's not coming to school anymore. I think he hates me, Yuta, I think he hates me so he's not coming anymore so he won't see me_ **

Yuta's heart cracked at the statement Taeyong had written. He wasn't cutting anymore, so Yuta presumed he was waiting for a reply.

**_i'm sure he doesn't hate you, maybe he'll come back soon? If he doesn't he's a jerk, give up on him, you're too good for him, Taeyong_ **

The cuts didn't continue, and neither did the replying. Yuta watched his message vanish; he washed the blood away, and pretended nothing happened at all-

-until more cuts appeared on his arm the next afternoon.

Taeyong wasn't replying this time, no matter how much Yuta tried to convince him to stop. He started panicking because what the actual hell was going on, Taeyong wasn't like this yesterday, did his friend do or say something that triggered him?

When the cutting had stopped, Yuta wrote on his right arm with his left handwriting again, gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain pulsing from his left arm.

 _'Taeyong'_ , Yuta attempted again, and cracked a small smile when a small dot of ink appeared below his message.

**_we have to talk about this. I don't care where you are, meet me at Switch cafe at 127 street, the one outside the National university of Seoul like, right now. Or as soon as you can_ **

Another dot was the reply, and Yuta huffed in annoyance. Was Taeyong joking around or taking Yuta seriously?

**_if there's no reply with actual words, I'm assuming that you're already on your way there_ **

Taeyong didn't reply. Not even a dot.

 

 

 

 

 

Yuta sort of regretted telling Taeyong to meet with him when he was in this terrible state. His nose looked like rudolph's from the excessive sneezing and his pockets overflowed with tissues. Then again, he was finally seeing the boy whom he had talked to for the past four years and a half, so how could Yuta postpone the date?

He barely made it to Switch cafe without dying from sniffling. There, he looked around for Taeyong, when he realised that, oh, he didn't know how Taeyong looked like.

And stupid Yuta, he had forgotten to bring a marker, so he couldn't ask Taeyong if he was already there or not. Looking around for an empty table to sit down and wait for him, a familiar red snapback caught his eye and a smile crept up his face.

"Angel!" Yuta exclaimed rather nasally and sat down at the seat opposite of him. Taeyong glanced up from his strawberry milkshake smoothie for a second before resuming his staring competition with it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't go to classes the past few days, as you can see, I'm still sick like hell," Yuta chuckled and noticed Taeyong grab the styrofoam of his cup tighter.

"Is everything okay? What happened when I was gone?" Yuta prompted and Taeyong just shrugged and shook his head, refusing to speak, like the old times.

Frowing at his friend, Yuta continued his monologue. "What are you doing here at this time? Don't you have classes starting soon?"

Taeyong swallowed the dry lump in his throat and shrugged again, taking a sip of his drink.

Yuta huffed and folded his arms. "Something's definitely wrong, as introverted as you are, you'd at least speak to me," he unfolded his arms and propped his chin up with his elbows.

"Anyway, I'm here because I finally secured a date with my soulmate! He recently began cutting again and he's not telling me what's wrong, so I told him to meet up so that I could comfort him and reassure him that he's not alone and I'm here for him," Yuta threw a glance at his watch, "I don't know if he's here yet. Do you have a marker on you so that I could talk to him?"

Taeyong started breathing more heavily, the rise and fall of his chest growing more prominent. The hands on his lap balled up into fists, and the message that Yuta wrote on his arm suddenly felt tingly.

Yuta sighed and reached out to grab Taeyong's arm gently, making the latter flinch over-excessively. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong or not? I don't like seeing you like this, I want to help, angel, and make you feel better."

Yuta expected him to relax and spill out his troubles, not to look up from his smoothie and stare into Yuta's eyes for a solid two seconds before dragging him out of the cafe.

"Hey! Angel! Stop, I have to wait for my soulmate!" Yuta shrieked and tried to wriggle out of Taeyong's grasp but he the latter just grabbed onto Yuta's wrist harder.

Yuta gave up, letting himself get dragged to wherever Taeyong was bringing him to. They ended up at Taeyong's vocal room, the one where Yuta first saw him, the one that Hansol claimed it was Taeyong's favourite. Taeyong removed his snapback and threw it to the ground, exposing his brown, fluffy hair. _Gorgeous._

"What the hell? Couldn't we just talk about it in the cafe? My soulmate's probably waiting for me now, and-"

"No," Taeyong shushed Yuta up and the Japanese man halted his rant and looked at his friend questionably.

"No?"

"The answer to your question. No. I don't have a marker that can help you talk to your soulmate," Taeyong said, voice strained, and Yuta groaned.

"Seriously, you brought me here just to tell me you didn't have a marker? Do you have one in here somewhere then?" Yuta looked around but Taeyong grabbed his chin, forcing Yuta to look at him.

"I'm not done," he continued, "you don't need a marker to talk to your soulmate. You're already talking to him."

Yuta cocked an eyebrow and burst out laughing, hitting Taeyong's chest in the process. "You're that delusional? Calling yourself my soulmate? You like me, angel? You think we're meant to be?"

Taeyong pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, before reaching over and yanking Yuta's left sleeve up.

"What are you doing! Angel, stop it!" Yuta grumbled and rolled his sleeve back down, but Taeyong's hand prevented him from doing so. The Korean boy looked away and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. Yuta was genuinely confused now. Was Taeyong practising his acting skills, or...

Taeyong carefully rolled up his own left sleeve and all the air in Yuta's lungs was knocked out.

**_we have to talk about this. I don't care where you are, meet me at Switch cafe at 127 street, the one outside the National university of Seoul like, right now. Or as soon as you can_ **

Period.

**_if there's no reply with actual words, I'm assuming that you're already on your way there_ **

No reply.

There, the words that were written on Taeyong's arm was a cut-copy-paste version of Yuta's. The identical last conversation that they had, the identical scars, the identical wounds that were still in the process of healing... Realisation hit Yuta in the heart like a bullet train. Suddenly everything made sense. Why it was so easy for him to make friends with Taeyong. Why Taeyong never revealed his real name to him despite being so close to him. Why Taeyong's handwriting on the little notes they passed each other looked so familiar. Why Taeyong was so introverted and sensitive-

"Yukkuri," Taeyong broke Yuta's train of thoughts. Yuta looked up at his friend and saw the other smiling the brightest smile he had ever seen him smile.

"It's me, Taeyong."

Yuta ran into Taeyong's arms, the tears he was holding in unknowingly spilling out. "Taeyong," he wailed, unable to form any words either than the name of his soulmate, "Taeyong, Taeyong, Taeyong..."

"I'm sorry I kept it a secret," Taeyong returned the hug and his cheeks became wet as well, "I didn't know how to react when you first introduced yourself as Yuta, then I thought that going up to you and suddenly announcing that I was your soulmate was too weird, so I waited for the right moment."

Yuta shook his head, hugging Taeyong tighter. "Don't be sorry, I should be the sorry one that made you go through whatever problems you had alone," Yuta pulled away his right hand, wiping away Taeyong's tears, "don't cry, baby."

"Everything's okay now, now that you're here," Taeyong smiled at the feeling of Yuta's hands on his face, "remember what I said? Yukkuri makes me feel things I never knew could be felt. Yukkuri is important to me."

Yuta giggled, even more nasally. "What kind of a name is Yukkuri? It's cute though, call me that more often," he snuggled his head in the crook of Taeyong's neck, and the two of them stayed in that position until Yuta gasped.

"Wait, Taeyong, so that means..." Yuta pulled away from the hug and left a gap between them, "you... like me?"

"And you like me," Taeyong smiled and Yuta felt his stomach do flips.

"And we should totally date," Yuta ended and the two of them found themselves in each other's embrace again, this time with Taeyong planting small and light kisses on Yuta's cheek.

Yuta closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of Taeyong pecking his cheek, and he couldn't feel any happier. Four years of communicating with his soulmate when he was right in front of Yuta, literally. His mind flashed back to the day they found out each other's existence, the day Taeyong first cut, the day he first met Taeyong. How Yuta's impressions of Taeyong changed over the years, from studious to depressing to introverted. They all led back to the same person, the cute and embarrassed boy that buried his head in Yuta's chest after kissing his cheek to his heart's content, Lee Taeyong.

Yuta shifted his gaze to his soulmate who was staring lovingly in his eyes and couldn't help but to press a kiss on his forehead. They might have taken things the hard way around, but they still ended up in the same place.

In each other's embrace, feeling the soft and gentle touches of their fingers on their arms.

**Author's Note:**

> when will i find a yuta


End file.
